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Chapter 214 – The Demon King (2)
by Heavenly CatThe area around the Ryugyong Hotel had changed once again since the new hero’s party had stormed it not long ago.
The ruins that had once surrounded the hotel were now completely gone, replaced by a vast, flat plain.
And on that plain, as well as on the walls of the Ryugyong Hotel itself, intricate patterns—magic circles—were inscribed.
The ground, and even the entire surface of the central building, emitted a faint glow from these magic circles.
Unlike before, the sight carried an eerie yet dangerous beauty, though the debris scattered across the massive magic circle marred its perfection.
This debris wasn’t from Pyongyang’s ruins—it was the wreckage of buildings and terrain from other worlds.
Among them were the half-collapsed mansion of an Ea noble, an upside-down mage’s tower, and more.
Of course, given the sheer scale of the magic circle—spanning from the banks of the Pothong River to Kyonghung-dong, Ryugyong-dong, Sokam-dong, and even the Victory Monument—these scattered ruins seemed insignificant from a distance.
Except for one.
A colossal wreckage nearly half the size of the Ryugyong Hotel itself.
It was clearly a fragment torn from another dimension, yet even in its broken state, it was monstrously large.
And it was still alive.
A massive stump and roots, oozing translucent blood, formed several houses.
This wreckage, which the Demon King had repurposed to redraw part of the magic circle, was a divine tree that had crossed dimensions.
The Demon King stood on the rooftop of the Ryugyong Hotel, watching the divine tree.
Surprisingly, his expression wasn’t displeased.
Though redrawing the magic circle had wasted time and mana, the sight of a living divine tree made up for it.
However, there was one thing that did bother him.
The minions clinging to the divine tree.
“Still not done?”
The Demon King muttered to himself, and a lich standing in the corner of the rooftop bowed its head.
[S-sorry. It’s d-dying, but beings with divine attributes are… resilient.]
The Demon King frowned at the lich’s stuttering.
Before, he wouldn’t have cared, but now, everything irritated him.
Perhaps it was because he had restored his flesh and emotions using the remaining mana.
This was another miracle made possible by the nuclear energy he had acquired—an energy source beyond mortal comprehension.
Unlike before, when he had acted mechanically for his goals, he now felt something akin to amusement.
But there were downsides too.
Like how his undead minions now annoyed him.
“I know divine attributes make it difficult, but this is taking too long.”
[W-would it not be easier to kill it and raise it as an undead?]
The Demon King’s expression darkened.
“If I wanted that, I wouldn’t have bothered with this. A dead divine tree is just a giant undead monster—devoid of divinity. I need its divine essence, tainted by miasma.”
[U-understood. We will hasten our efforts.]
The lich bowed again and left the rooftop.
Liches were undead, but they had once been mages. Yet this one could barely form coherent thoughts.
“Is it really because they lack brains, like the books in this world say?”
Watching the lich go, the Demon King was reminded of the saintess whose connection had been severed.
The former saintess, corrupted by miasma.
Preserving her body while tainting her mind had made for interesting conversations.
And her abilities had been useful too.
“Damn those Ea bastards. That brat of a new hero couldn’t have taken her down. So who did?”
They had rescued the young hero from his trap and ruined every plan the Demon King had laid.
Of course, it wasn’t just one person—likely, those swordsmen had intervened.
“With the Empire in danger, they must have all crawled out of hiding.”
Because of them, his carefully laid plans had crumbled, forcing him to resort to a spell he had never intended to use.
Before regaining his emotions, he would have taken his time—opening new gates, sending more forces to Ea—but now, he couldn’t be bothered.
Emotion had overtaken reason.
The biggest downside of regaining his humanity.
Not that the Demon King saw it as entirely bad.
“What’s the difference between slowly conquering with undead and annihilating everything to build a kingdom from the survivors?”
There was a difference, of course, but the Demon King ignored it.
Repeated failures were frustrating.
This whole plan had been half-driven by emotion, and now, this dying divine tree had crashed into his domain.
He had tried corrupting a young divine tree by luring it into a trap, but that had failed too.
A sapling, barely formed in divinity.
“That one failed as well.”
He had even sent stragglers to monitor it, but contact with them had been lost.
Clearly, the problem was that he hadn’t overseen things personally.
(Though he had lost track of the young hero and the new saintess once, but the Demon King had already erased that from his memory.)
“Once this divine tree is tainted, I can sweep up the surviving trees after the dimensions merge.”
Just as powerful monsters had survived dimensional travel, so too would the divine trees—though their massive forms would be shattered in the process.
Not that the Demon King minded.
The thought of ruling over corrupted divine trees as his minions…
The undead cities he would build with them…
He couldn’t let this dying tree slip away.
If not for the magic circle, he would have infused it with miasma himself.
But he couldn’t move from this spot.
The dimensional fusion spell required the caster to remain at the center of the circle.
A spell of this scale—large enough to blanket a city, powered by dozens, even hundreds of nuclear explosions—wasn’t something just anyone could maintain.
Only the Demon King, the Lord of Death and master of magic in life, could even attempt it.
And he had to be prepared for contingencies.
The dimensional fusion had sealed all gates, so interference from Ea was impossible—but there were still living humans in this world.
Not that their interference bothered him.
In fact, it helped.
Like the weapons they had launched before, and the ones flying toward him now.
“Faster than I expected. But this world’s humans are only good at speed.”
The same weapons as before were incoming.
Instead of descending from space, they skimmed low across the sky—but the Demon King, who had the entire city under his gaze, didn’t miss them.
“They’ll just become fuel for my magic. Desperate flailing, I suppose.”
It was impressive that they had figured out the dimensional fusion was his doing.
But to attack with the same nuclear missiles again?
These humans reminded him of the bureaucrats of the old empire that had fallen long ago.
“Bureaucracy, was it?”
Muttering to himself—another bad habit since regaining emotions—the Demon King raised both hands toward the sky.
Dozens of magic circles flared to life in the darkening heavens.
The same spell he had cast before, using buildings across the city as anchors.
A spell that converted nuclear energy into mana.
Now, brimming with mana, he could cast it effortlessly on his own—even while maintaining the dimensional fusion.
His figure, weaving magic circles across the sky, looked almost divine.
As hundreds of missiles streaked toward Pyongyang—now a city unrecognizable from its former self—the Demon King waited.
They came from the west, where the submarine lurked; from the east, where Japan lay; and from the south, where Guam stood.
Flying low before ascending for precision strikes, they closed in.
Then the Demon King frowned.
There was no light. No sound.
The missiles should have detonated upon hitting the magic circles, their explosions absorbed as fuel—
But these missiles passed right through.
“Why aren’t they exploding?”
As the Demon King turned in confusion, a human leaning against the rooftop railing gasped out an answer.
“T-those aren’t n-nuclear! They’re conventional cruise missiles!”
He was a surrendered officer of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, awakened but barely surviving the miasma at the heart of the magic circle.
Though half-dead, bound by the Demon King’s will, he had no choice but to answer.
“I see. No warheads? These humans aren’t complete fools.”
Conventional explosives paled in comparison to nukes, but they weren’t useless.
The Demon King had even used them to corner the hero’s party once.
Had he not known, these missiles might have done real damage.
But the Demon King was well-versed in this world’s weapons now.
And with the vast mana at his disposal, there was no way he’d fall to mere bombs.
He raised a hand toward the missiles piercing through his magic circles.
Boom! Kaboom!
Explosions erupted wherever his hand pointed.
Missiles targeting the Ryugyong Hotel were destroyed before even nearing the ground.
Yet despite intercepting many, the Demon King’s expression darkened.
He couldn’t stop them all.
While he protected the hotel and key sections of the magic circle, some missiles struck the outskirts, damaging parts of the circle.
Repairable in real-time, but—
One missile had struck the divine tree.
Embedded in the central stump, the explosion nearly severed the tree’s last flicker of life.
Several liches infusing it with miasma were obliterated, but the Demon King barely noticed.
(Not that conventional explosives could permanently destroy high-ranking undead. Their scattered bones would reform in time.)
“All liches—all minions—focus on infusing the tree! Corrupt it before it dies!”
The Demon King’s voice boomed across the rooftop.
He could have used message magic, but in his anger, he had resorted to shouting.
—
Operation successful.
As the missiles struck and high-ranking undead across Pyongyang converged on the Ryugyong Hotel, we infiltrated the city undetected.
Our destination: the Ryugyong Hotel.
The time had come to face the Demon King—the enemy we had been evading until now.
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